


grasping at straws

by fatalsam (bitehard)



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Blood, Descent into Madness, Descriptions of wounds, Gen, M/M, Obsession, One-Sided Attraction, Post-Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, one sided obsession more like
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-29
Updated: 2020-10-29
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:39:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27267355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bitehard/pseuds/fatalsam
Summary: In spite of himself, Maul remembers the fall.
Relationships: Obi-Wan Kenobi/Darth Maul
Comments: 2
Kudos: 31
Collections: Reto Halloween 2020 fandomium





	grasping at straws

**Author's Note:**

> Written / translated for the fandomium discord halloween challenge - prompt #5 film - ringu
> 
> The awesome Maul fanart is made by Aredhel, who you can find at her [instagram](https://instagram.com/aredhel_alcarin?igshid=zzslw84g0yd7). Thanks so much for drawing this! I love it so much.

His leg, or what’s left of it, doesn’t hurt, the humilliation is a different story.

*

Kenobi has changed since he saw him the last time. He has crushed, and that’s the word, _crushed_ , both of them at the same time, focused all the time without missing a beat. Maul won’t, can’t, leave it (him) alone, but he also knows he has to become stronger, or maybe take Kenobi when he is weaker, think of a better trap. Naming his master won’t cut it again. He can’t stand his calm, his balance, the ability to repress his movements and save energy. He can’t even stand the wrath that Maul knows there is underneath it all. He saw it some years and a couple lifetimes back, in that tower on Naboo. He saw it on those brat eyes. He was just a padawan when he cut Maul in two, and then there was no real harmony on Obi-Wan: Maul lost because his own overconfidence after killing his master, and that’s the truth.

It’s happened again, and that’s what is driving him mad. The thing is, Obi-Wan is not like the other jedis he knows, he transforms and adapts and every time Maul tries to take him by surprise is him who leaves broken and beaten. 

He tries to stop that line of thought. It’s okay, he thinks, because he is alive. He looks at Savage sleeping next to him, in the improvised bunk on the ship. They’ll find a way to substitute his brother’s arm and rebuild his own leg, they’ll find a way to come back stronger, something will help them. The Force is there for the Dark Side too. 

He looks the space traveling fast around the ship. He rests his chin on his forearm and doesn’t blink even if his eyes burn, trying not to fall asleep and images of another time like this come to him, unwillingly. It was the same at least in the running away and the ship with no known destination. 

In spite of himself, Maul remembers the fall in Naboo.

*

That time, the first thing was the surprise, and just after that, the pain. The wound cauterized in a second but that just stopped the bleeding; all his nerves seemed like one, howling and asking for him to end the torture. 

It lasted just too much time and even if it was his will which kept him alive he doesn’t really know where it came from, how could he remember his Master’s teachings and preserve his body on that limbo, more dead than alive and yet… It wasn’t hope to be saved, of course: in the Dark Side there is a lot to win but failures are not forgiven nor forgotten as easy. 

He knows he was able to grab the hanging cables, corners, anything that allowed him to slow the fall. He saw his own legs plummet before his eyes and if he could’ve been able to think it over he may have given up but nothing had any logic so thinking it over was not an option. 

In the end, that is not important anymore. The meaningful conclusion is that he didn’t die. He hasn’t been back to Naboo and, as long as he can avoid it, he never will. That planet may burn into fucking space for all that matters. The space is wide enough. He doesn’t want to come back to what he remembers, the mechanical waste plant he fell into and the days after that. Meditation was never his strongest skill but being half a body there were not a lot of options. He tried to talk and listen to the all the Force he was able to feel and used it to know when he was alone. He slept, restless, obsesively thinking and dreaming about a lot of stuff but, underneath it all, just something was really strong, almost tangible and consumed him at the same time that it gave him strenght: he had to survive.

He didn’t sleep much. He doesn’t even belive he was able to actually think clearly in any moment, mind clouded by the pain and the phantom limbs under his waist. He crawled above the waste, half-broken robots, disconnecting them if they dared to say a word. He wasn’t really conscious that _he_ was actually talking, sometimes in whispers, sometimes in screams. Not always making sense. 

A group of people appeared, took some metal pieces, he hid. More people appeared, he ignored them, pure instinct that told him it was not a good idea. He trusted it until, almost gone crazy because of hunger and thirst, knew in his bones that was his opportunity. 

Surviving was the only coherent though in his mind. He asked the Force for it, _let me survive. Let me survive this._

He followed them, human and gungan, dragging his body, while they looked for something in the debris. He followed them until they went back to the ship and he climbed through a ventilation conduct, ruining his fingers, nails, knuckles; the skin on the forearms when he couldn’t avoid the cables protuding from the walls. He climbed muttering to the Force, grabbing himself even with his teeth. He used his own blood to focus himself and calm the thirst at least for a minute and hid until, hours later, they left the planet, not bothering to check if someone (something?) else have followed them. Leave the planet, the orbit, and from there to the hyperspace. _Goodbye for good, Naboo, goodbye, Kenobi, I hope to see you again sometime._

From that point, it was easy. He slided in the cockpit of the not so big ship and killed both of them from the ground before they even were aware that something was wrong. He didn’t change course: he didn’t know how, either way. Up until that moment, as far as he can remembers, he was just a shape of instinct and hatred, an arrow that just pointed forward.

In that ship, moving at the speed of light, he had plenty of time to realize that surviving was not enough to carry him; the food and water he found helped him focus the next hours and, once that wasn’t an issue anymore, he needed something else. He knew thinking about his Master won’t cut it, he couldn’t even feel resentment because he would have done the same, neither thinking about it like a new opportunity to live, because why would that matter to anyone, less of all to himself. He found it, at last, what would drive him to the next steps. 

That hatred in the dammed jedi’s eyes, dammed Obi-Wan, when he cut him in half. That wrath that had allowed to win the apprentice of the most powerful being on the galaxy. Once he envisioned it, he could’t tear it from his mind, that almost boyish face that Maul could only think to destroy, if necessary, with his own hands, now bloody and bruised and pained.

Everything that was wrong on Maul’s life was _his_ fault, and he had (still has) to pay.

Kenobi had to die, and, for that to happen, Maul was obligated to continue living. 

*

It would have been ironic to die when his ship crashed in the planet where he would live the following years. Hungry, food on the ship long finished, pained, like an animal. He went through the tunnels, down, down, unable to bear with the sunlight. He survived. Eating whatever entered what he end up considering his domains, making deals with snakes, joined to a machine that he built in dreams or when he only was half awake, fainting when the ache was just too much, not knowing exactly what he was doing but perceiving that it would work. He crept for months through those caverns until he had forgotten what was the sun, what was to see or feel anything apart from the hate that wasn’t exactly hate, because he also forgot who or what was the target. 

He stopped understanding his own words, repeated obsesively to remember them, even if he didn’t know why they were important, he knew they _were_. Sometimes the hunger or thirst were so strong that he could not even move. The temperature changed, sometimes, and the sun came up and down and up and down and he didn’t understand why the life changed outside, his mind almost gone. 

Kenobi. The last straw of conscience his mind allowed him to grasp, the last connection to his old life and any hope to have another one in the future. Six letters, a word, a name.

Kenobi. 

*

He comes back when Savage grunts, distressed, inbetween dreams. Maul allows himself a second, a moment of empathy and pity he knows he should not feel and puts a hand in his shoulder, as if it could heal him. And it shouldn’t, but it works, in a way, because Savage calms down and doesn’t wake up. 

Maul knows this feeling. He is going to faint, and bites in his forearm to try and endure the drowsiness until it passes but to no avail, it’s impossible, his body isn’t just strong enough. He finally lets go, and thinks about the Force, and thinks about Kenobi and his not-so-boyish face now, and thinks about surviving one more time. 

He is the best at that, at least. 

**Author's Note:**

> My first fic in the fandom after finishing The Clone Wars and of course it would be about Maul. This is mostly a gen fic but I preferred to tag it also as obimaul because I must confess that is what feels in my heart. Though it can be absolutely read as non-shippy.
> 
> Come talk to me about maul @ youbitehard in tumblr.


End file.
